Int’l community must put pressure on Armenia in Karabakh conflict: expert

23:04
16 June 2017
1357

The UN must exert pressure on the countries that do not observe the international law and do not fulfill the UN’s decisions, Hans-Joachim Heintze, professor of international law at the University of the Ruhr Bochum, Germany, said.

Heintze was commenting on Armenia’s non-fulfillment of the UN Security Council’s resolutions for many years.

He added that many countries are disappointed in the UN with certain countries’ not complying with its decisions.

Heintze stressed that the Armenians in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region have no right for declaring an independent state and for self-determination as they are a national minority in Azerbaijan and such issues must be solved by the entire population of the country.

“If we consider this issue proceeding from such logic, then there must be more than 3,000 countries in the world, which means an end to the system of international relations,” Heintze said.

He added that the illegal regime in the Nagorno-Karabakh region was created as a result of Armenia's intervention.

“I always criticize the OSCE Minsk Group for mentioning the principle of the right to self-determination of peoples in the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict along with the principle of ensuring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” he said. “The Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh region have rights as a national minority. Azerbaijan should protect their rights in this aspect after the conflict settlement, which was repeatedly stated by the Azerbaijani government.”

“The settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict directly depends on Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Heintze said, adding that the sides must eliminate stereotypes towards each other. “The conflict settlement is impossible with external interference.”

He said the external players are interested in preserving the status quo, therefore, Armenian and Azerbaijani civil societies should also talk to each other.

Heintze recalled that the two parts of Germany began to unify with the efforts of civil society.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.